On October 30th of 2018, OpenDreamKit underwent its second formal review by the European Commission, represented by three reviewers and our former and new project officers. About twenty five of us came to Luxembourg to present our achievements during the second period of the project (March 2017 to August 2018), including 18 deliverables. See our reports.
After two days of rehearsals, we had one day of presentations and software demonstrations, which all came up as quite a show.
Up to a legitimate complaint about our financial reports being delivered very late by our administrations and some other minor points, the feedback was once again very positive, with language such as “very good technical work”, “very good sustainability plan”, “very good management work considering difficulty of managing large project with many and challenging goals”, “you have done extremely well”, “we urge you to apply for future funding”. They also pointed out the spirit, the passion, and the unity of our team despite its size. This is apparently not that common among EU projects.
As for the last review, we had made a strong point in our reports and presentations that a vast majority of what’s happening comes from the ecosystem we support. All we do is exploit the special resources the EU is entrusting us to knock down some tough hurdles that are preventing the ball to roll. Big kudos to our communities!
We have now entered OpenDreamKit’s third and last period. In one year day to day, we will be presenting the outcome of four years of hard work. Hopefully by then we will have secured future funding in one form or the other to keep supporting our ecosystem.